Vespasion

I thought it wasn't accurate but all the same, thanks for clearing that up.

I am currently in the process of watching the television series Rome on BBC2; in the last episode it showed Octavian sleeping with his sister. As I tend to prefer to research the army, i was wondering if anyone could confirm this claim. Thanks

Really? I am no huge fan of Livy myself, but which bits of his punic wars accounts do you find unreliable? As for Polybius he is not exactly reliable himself. His grasp of Roman politics is shaky beyond belief for a man who spent so long at the centre of power. Good general and so his battle stuff is usually pretty bang on, but even some of the figures are a little contentious. Cheers Sullafelix I'll edit this post as i must do research as the points i found often contradicted each other. Will post my reply on a later date Thanks

I beleive it was an official title; just like consul and so on however i'm unsure so i wouldn't take it as certain. Hopefly this will have answered your question.

Humans naturally invent useless things for example the water pistol but if someone looked upon it they may beleive it was effective against fighting fires. Art is useless; no offence; but it has no practical purpose other then a creative outlet. Thanks

When trying to work out the costs of the Galic wars; we must consider that Caesar raided Gaulish settlements for food,brought back slaves and all the plunder of war. All of these things were valuable in Rome and tradeable however to adress the issue of the Germanic invasions; in my oppinon the romans did not use the borders to there full advantage for example the goths were allowed to pass through the borders. Big mistake. The romans did not seem to understand that letting 100's of 1000's of people through the boders would not have a knock on effect. By the way i don't know if this is just speculation but when the WRE fell and Rome was besieged, i've read that the barbarian general left 300 of his best soldiers to be given to the romans as slaves..................you probably know what happened next; they went and opened up the city walls and the army came flooding in. I'm unsure if this is true but if so the Romans obviously hadn't learnt a lesson from Troy. Never accept gifts from your enemy. Thanks

As your reffered to me in your reply; i feel it is compulsory that i reply: I didn't open this topic trying to discredit Caesar and i apologise if thats the view you received yet everyone has an oppinion and as i partly blamed Caesar naturally my argument would tend more to the negative side however i expected to be disputed but please do not try to discredit me by saying that when i start this thread it was one sided. Thanks

As to refer to the hardcore christians, if they beleived the Romans were brutal they should research their history. The christians were one of the most brutal religous sects; anyone who proved any religous beliefs wrong were murdered in secret. Christianity cann't claim to be a peaceful religion when their history has been filled with violence. The Crusades for example; christianity encouraged knights to go off and kill. Thanks

I've found livy's acounts to be somewhat misleading; so i try to avoid reallying on him. However everyone has there own source which they rely on. Personally when referring to these accounts, i find Polybius to be much less speculated and based more on solid facts.

Does that mean that you beleive the seperation in classes is to balme for the fall of the republic or the fall of the empire? By the way thanks for that information; i've never heard anyone argue that it was the split in classes that caused the fall of the republic. Anyway your reasons seem to be well researched and your figures precise and your oppinion well argued. Thanks.

As it has been said before, one man having complete power is a recipe for diasaster and far greater corruption, the Romans realised this and tried to avoid it at all costs. They did the right thing in my oppinion, despite the Republics problems it gradually would have been forced to adapt to a more intellectual process when giving out field commands. For example do you beleive an Emperor of Rome such as Nero would have been able to defeat Hannibal after the amount of civil wars which had occured. The republic had one redeeming feature almost unlimitless man-power which the republic sometimes used wisely and sometimes did not.

(I'm not buying this, Caesar caued the downfall of the republic, not the empire. While we're making a radical claims here's mine: George Washington started the decline of the U.S - In 200 years the United States is going to collapse into anarchy and be conquered by Muslims)- Hannibal Barca Come to Britain we've already been taken over by the muslims:lol: But to be serious Caesar did not need to destroy the senate he could of just established that his crimes where commited on behalf of the empire or he could of invaded and captured Rome but after being granted immunity handed the city over to the republic as Sulla had. The republic was not completly failing at the time it simply needed modernisation and a change of senators not a dictator! Plus as M.P.C said Caesar commited crimes against the republic of Rome and deserved punishment despite what conquests he had acheived. He was still breaking the law! The modern equivilant is stealing a car to get a man having a heart attack to hospital; valiant yet illegal, in the eyes of the law, laws can't be broken despite any circumstances unless the law permits cahnges.

If Hannibal had succeded in taking Rome yes history would have been very different however realisticly Hannibal taking Rome would have been a miracle; My reason for this that every citizen in Rome would fight to the death even though Hannibal would have had battle hardened veterans this is nothing if you compare it to the population of Rome.

I beleive there are 35,000 soldiers in the army 30,000 in the RAF and 35,000 soldiers in the navy

I've been searching through the topics for a while and haven't seen a topic discussing this. In my oppinion Gaius Julius Caesar ultimatly signed the Empires death warrant. My reason for this is that: Towards the end of the empire, the emperors became increasingly scared of being overthrown by a popular general and often due to this fear had the most promising generals killed.Therefore if Caesar hadn't overthrown the republic, the generals would not have been hunted down as traitors but have been given consulships in which to expand the empire and bring Roman rule to barbarian nations; also as a republic, in my oppinion Rome would have been in a better position to deal with invading hordes. Thanks.

The tactics I beleive in the later period depended on the generals commanding the army; however the early armies firstly they sent in the Hastai; once these were tired the Principles would chage in; after these were exhausted or dead the Triari charged in. Hopefly by this time the enemy would be routing or dead; however if this didn't happen i'm unsure how the Romans would adapt to this situation. Thanks

By preparing for the Parthian war; what do you mean? Are you reffering to the extent he surveyed the land, the training of special forces equiped to deal with horse archers, the supplies and provisions he gathered or simply his study of Parthian strategy? Thanks.

This was the case with the early legions however near the end of the roman empire; the troops were ill-disciplined, poorly trained and often no better equiped then their barbarian counterparts for e.g. the foderai infantry of the late empire. Therefore in my oppinion the phalanx would be able to beat the the late armies of the empire; as the troop attacks were not co-ordinated and the troops would more then likely be unable to reach the soldiers in the phalanx So to answer the original questio, in my oppinion; Yes an early Roman Empire army would beat a phalanx but a late Roman Army due to the lack of discipline would have been defeated by the phalanx.

Fantastic list! But just to expand on the British Empire it covered a quarter of the globe and had a huge population loyal to Britain. It

Thank you for that correction, as i stated before i want this to be as historicaly accurate as possible, so if I have written incorrect information please do not be hesitant to inform me. By the way here's the final piece of my work, it also includes information about a few besieged cities as 'FLavius Valerius Constantinus' suggested. Claudius and Fabius split armies however it was Claudius who encountered Hannibal first; he deployed in a classically roman offensive manner however Claudius showed some military ability, unlike the other Roman commanders before him. When positioning his troops he did so that the terrain aided his men although there were no huge conflicts between these two commanders there were many skirmishes which thanks to the terrain often favoured the Roman forces. Claudius unlike his predecessors, kept his army under extremely tight control, the men in the units were not allowed to divert from there columns and the terrain were they camped was always in favour of a defending force; this created further difficulties as one of the main reasons Hannibal had been successful was the incompetence of his enemies and his ability to use the terrain to lure the enemy into an ambush. Fabius

I'll try; just need to do some research, i can tell you what cities Fabius and Claudius sieged, too be honest there icons to me, probably my second favorites next to Vespasian. Thanks for the reply, I suppose people saw how long it was and clicked exit.

As i've found this web page to be very factual and i would just like a few of you to confirm all of these facts thanks. Sorry it's so long. In November 218 BC, Hannibal crossed the Alps into Italy; to the surprise of the Roman Senate who had expected to engage Hannibal in Spain, the second Punic war began after Hannibal attacked a Spanish city allied to Rome, Saguntum. Hannibal

The Romans ability to adapt formations and strict discipline would of all been contributing factors however; when discussing Caesars legions vs Alexanders army, you not only have to consider the armies but the generals too, although Alexander is a decorated general, the main way he won battles was to flank his opponents phalanxes with his companion cavalry; Caesar veterans from Gaul, i'm sure would be able to adapt their formation to beat this threat and as the legions through two pilums before they engaged thier enemy this would of confused and scattered the phalanx formation allowing the legionaries to attack the exposed flanks of their enemies. By the way as I study Roman warfare; can you tell me the pluaral of phalanx Thanks I apologise that i spelt Vespasian wrong.